


This Can't Be Love

by jat_sapphire



Series: Cabaret Set [2]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: First Time, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:12:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: Aftermath of "Something's Got to Give."  Bodie thinks it's easy.





	This Can't Be Love

>   
>  _This can't be love, because I feel so well  
>  No sobs, no sorrows, no sighs_  
> 

 

Jax and Susan arrived at the safe house right on time; Bodie and Doyle left it. The Section B agents had changed over as well. It was dusk, the sky a gentle Wedgwood blue. They got in the Capri, Bodie driving, and went to Doyle’s flat in silent accord. Each took up a carrier bag.

“Should really go to yours, this stuff,” Doyle said.

Bodie shrugged. “I’ve got food in.”

The ends of Doyle’s mouth tucked in, but he said nothing.

“Leftover Chinese,” Bodie admitted.

Doyle shook his head, but still did not speak, and Bodie knew why. Ice cream in the freezer, eggs and cheese in the fridge, the day was really behind them, and now the night was theirs. They had more to do than bicker about food.

Earlier, while they were still on the job, Bodie had been frantic, starving for Doyle’s mouth and their bodies wrapped together like rope. Now, he found that he could stand back and look, sit down and relax, and appreciate how _easy_ this all was.

No courting. No date. It might be pleasant to do sometime, just as bringing the fresh food had been, but he didn't have to buy flowers or take Doyle out to dinner. He didn't need to watch and check for the signs that he might put an arm around his shoulders, kiss his cheek, lower his voice to a level that made his partner tremble.

They each had a glass of whiskey. They sat on the sofa and gazed at each other, smilingly anticipating what they could start any time. Bodie reached out and cupped Doyle's shoulder, round and warm between the hard shapes of muscles, between the straps of his holster. Then he hooked a finger under the leather and said, “Take these off, shall we?”

“'s a start,” Doyle agreed, and the next moment, it was hanging over the sofa back. He leaned into the cushions again and sipped his drink. “Your turn.”

Bodie unbuckled, dipped one shoulder and then the other to slide the straps down, folded the ends around the holster, and laid it all on the coffee table.

Doyle reached over and plucked at the knit of Bodie's polo-neck, then glanced up under his lashes. Bodie pulled it over his head. Doyle pulled off his rugby top without prompting. It wasn't like a strip-tease. Yet Bodie saw Doyle's shoulders move as he shivered, as he stared at Bodie's torso.

Given how any button-down shirt Doyle wore was mostly unbuttoned by the end of any day that didn't involve shooting, Bodie ought to be finding the full sight of Doyle's chest quite ordinary, but in fact it made him breathe faster and want to run his fingers through the curly thatch of hair, hold the solid pectoral muscles, then … Bodie quit making a mental list and just lunged.

Doyle laughed, lightly, briefly, and grabbed back.

 

> _This can't be love, I get no dizzy spells  
>  My head is not in the skies_

 

Those years ago, when he was just a kid, really, proud of himself for being in Krivas' crew because he had no idea what a crazy and literally bloody bastard he was, he'd carried the big gun braced on his hip and felt ten feet tall. Swaggered through the village and glared around him as the kids ran for cover. Oh, yes, he'd been the big man.

Then she came to the hospital compound gate, dressed all in white, and eyed him up and down, indifferent to his posturing. She put one hand on the solid door, and it was slim as she was. Her eyes were dark. Her hair was a shining chestnut brown. She was so clean and brave that she took his breath away, literally seized up his lungs, and he felt dazed. She shifted her hips, leaned a little, and his head was spinning.

He never thought it was anything but love.

 

> _My heart does not stand still, just hear it beat_  
> 

 

He'd seen the photographs in the newspaper, read every word of the foolish, fawning reporting. Against his will, it swept him into memories of those months in Berlin, smuggling across the Wall. How Marikka had looked in slacks and polo and soft boots, all black, her glorious shadow-brown hair stuffed under a knit cap, that sweet little mole on her neck teasing him. How it felt under his lips. How she always moved just that little bit, shifting as his mouth moved, as if she were rubbing her thighs together. As if he inflamed her as she did him.

He didn't expect anything but that sweet momentary fantasy, until he took the Capri round an ordinary corner and saw her take a bouquet of roses and smile for the audience—camera, backers, whomever. He felt the same old pang in his chest, froze, and Doyle had to shout so they didn't actually hit the other car.

He couldn't really still be in love with her, could he? After she'd left him for that producer? And now she was married, and it had been years. Busy years. But his heart didn't seem to remember any of that. It just stopped, then surged, pounding in his chest.

  


>   
>  _This is too sweet to be love_
> 
> _This can't be love, because I feel so well  
>  But still I love to look in your eyes_

 

Though he had boasted about the perfection of his birds as long as he'd been telling Doyle about them, which was after nearly every date since they were teamed, what Bodie really loved about women's bodies were the parts the women themselves didn't like. When one nipple pointed up and one down, or one breast was larger than the other. The little stray hairs that grew on some birds' breasts. The little pooch of tummy on even the leanest girls. The soft, squishy part at the tops of their thighs. Underarms. Marikka hadn't cared about her mole, but he had. And there was the endless variety and beauty of their woman parts, like lilies and orchids and pansies.

He'd had less opportunity to pay attention to the quirks of men's bodies. He'd noticed pricks and bollocks, of course, and they were all different, but the kind of sex he'd had with men didn't encourage exploration or even appreciation.

Doyle was enchantingly irregular. Bodie knew the uneven cheeks and eyes, the chipped tooth, but he found so much more now. The hair on Ray's chest wasn't a solid pelt, and one armpit was just a bit furrier than the other. Bodie rubbed his own cheek against Ray's, then on the other side, to feel how the texture differed, and it did. Then his scars, the rough patches or ridges or white lines of his strength and survival—Bodie kissed all of them on shoulders and chest and stomach and upper arms, not forgetting the smoother or hairier skin between them. Ray moved as if he were dancing lying down, and handled Bodie's skin as if it were something both tough and precious, that he could suck hard and grip with all his strength, that he would hold tightly to himself and push against as if he meant to merge them together. Their arms closed around each other, shifted, held again. Both were so absorbed that they didn't think of sexual positions, didn't try to put arse and prick together, didn't bend around to put mouths to cocks or balls. They stroked each other's skins with their whole bodies, until it seemed their whole bodies were aflame and orgasmed all over.

They lay breathing. Their hearts beat hard, then slowed. Their eyes were closed, yet Bodie knew everything he would see if he lifted his heavy eyelids. In a moment, just a moment.

It was morning. Their heads were on the same pillow; they'd slept so deeply that neither had moved, or not enough to be noticed. As they were still holding each other, the change in one's breathing nudged the other out of sleep and they opened their eyes almost together. Bodie saw the fawn lashes on Ray's cheek just before they lifted. They were longer than they looked from a ordinary distance, the ends so pale that they were usually invisible. Two of them crossed at the tip, apparently uncomfortably because Ray blinked rapidly several times, then rubbed one eye. Bodie caught his hand, smiling, pulled it to his mouth and kissed the fingers.

Ray's eyes were sleepy and warm, and he stroked back Bodie's cheek into his hair, rolled forward, and kissed with his lips soft and closed. Bodie knew about first-thing morning kisses, how a good bedmate was too considerate to share morning mouths with people close enough to sleep with but not close enough to have an ordinary human body with. And he thought, _The hell with that,_ opened his mouth, pulled Ray closer and tasted his bitter tongue, breathing his rancid exhalation, smiling into the kiss because “considerate” was not a thing they needed to think of with each other.

 

> _My heart does not stand still, just hear it beat_  
>  _This is too sweet to be love_
> 
> _This can't be love, because I feel so well  
>  But still I love to look in your eyes_  
> 

They were due back at the safe house at noon again, so they made good, sexy use of the morning and packed up the sandwich makings to take with them.

Bodie hadn't liked the look, yesterday, of the two CI5 cars in solitary splendour on the street, so he meant to find a parking space round the corner. Doyle had the carrier bags—no ice cream, this afternoon—and got onto the pavement, then froze. One hand went out, and Bodie braked, shut off the engine. Doyle lowered the carrier bags to the pavement, then went lightfooted to the door while drawing his gun, and turned the handle—it was unlocked. Bodie got out of the car himself, gestured to Morris and Donovan, and as he was turning back, Ray stepped in and two distinct shots fired.

For a moment, Bodie could neither move nor breathe. His lungs were as solid as if they were filled with concrete. Not just his heart, but the world around him stopped for the space of what would have been a breath, a beat.

Then he ran, and Ray was there, unhurt, and the shots had been Ray's and Liz's. The man they'd shot at was splayed on the floor; Pat Rogers was standing in the lounge doorway looking as though he were going to be sick. Bodie's heart was racing, now, and he was in deep trouble.

In love. This was being in love. Ray's eyes held his, clear and knowing. Bodie could not look away.

 

> _Still I love to look in your eyes_  
> 

 


End file.
